October 30, 2009 2:00 PM

President Obama announced an end to the HIV Travel and Immigration Ban during the signing ceremony for the vital Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act this afternoon.

The travel ban, a legacy of Jesse Helms, has been in place since 1987. It prevented HIV+ non-U.S. citizens from traveling or immigrating to the United States unless granted a special waiver from the the Department of Homeland Security.

Twenty-two years ago, in a decision rooted in fear rather than fact, the United States instituted a travel ban on entry into the country for people living with HIV/AIDS. Now, we talk about reducing the stigma of this disease — yet we’ve treated a visitor living with it as a threat. We lead the world when it comes to helping stem the AIDS pandemic — yet we are one of only a dozen countries that still bar people from HIV from entering our own country.

If we want to be the global leader in combating HIV/AIDS, we need to act like it. And that’s why, on Monday my administration will publish a final rule that eliminates the travel ban effective just after the New Year. Congress and President Bush began this process last year, and they ought to be commended for it. We are finishing the job. It’s a step that will encourage people to get tested and get treatment, it’s a step that will keep families together, and it’s a step that will save lives.

Congress passed the policy reversal last summer under the leadership of Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Gordon Smith (D-OR) and Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA); former President George W. Bush signed it into law, but the Administration was unable to finalize the change before his term ended.

The new regulation eliminates any travel and immigration restrictions that are tied to a person’s HIV status. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) put the wheels of change in motion in late June by publishing the proposed regulation to the federal register, which triggered a 45-day public comment period. HHS has now sent the final change to the Office of Management and Budget for approval, but the source said HHS would not be able to fully implement the new regulation for another 60 days following the president’s announcement.

In the intervening months, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has directed its officers to place holds on any decisions regarding green card applications that are based solely on an individual’s HIV status pending full implementation of the new rule.

Immigration Equality, which has been pushing for lifting the restrictions, had this to say:

We are proud to have been part of a tremendous coalition, including Senator John Kerry, former Senator Gordon Smith, and Congresswoman Barbara Lee, who have worked tirelessly to repeal this ban. Every day, Immigration Equality hears from individuals and families who have been separated because of the ban, with no benefit to the public health. Now, those families can be reunited, and the United States can put its mouth where its money is: ending the stigma that perpetuates HIV transmission, supporting science, and welcoming those who seek to build a life in this country. Today’s announcement is proof that immigration laws that separate families and stigmatize communities are always destined to fail.

Also key was the extension of the Ryan White Act. The three-year extension of the lifesaving legislation funds an array of innovative and effective services that form the healthcare safety net for uninsured and underinsured Americans living with HIV/AIDS. According to the Government Accountability Office, the program helps about 500,000 annually.

The Ryan White Care Act, first enacted in 1990, is the nation’s largest federally funded program for people living HIV/AIDS.

VICTORIA — The famed Olympic torch relay for the 2010 Winter Olympics got off to a celebratory start here this morning, as first torchbearers Catriona Le May Doan and Simon Whitfield, both Olympic gold medalists, raised together the sleek white torch to the sky in front of large crowds at the provincial legislature, before heading off on the flame’s 106-day, cross-country odyssey.

Le May Doan won the 500 metres in long track speed skating at the 1998 Nagano Olympics and the 2002 Salt Lake City Games while Whitfield won the Olympic men’s triathlon at the 2000 Sydney Summer Games.

The two athletes ran a short distance before passing the torch to another pair of Canadian Olympic heroes, diver Alexandre Despatie and rower Silken Laumann. Both Whitfield and Laumann call Victoria home.

Afterwards, Ms. Le May Doan and Mr. Whitfield were still glowing about the experience as they talked to the media.

“It didn’t really hit me until we started jogging,” said Mr. Whitfield. “It finally dawned on, this is the Olympic torch. To do something beyond the Olympic experience of being an athlete, which can be quite selfish, is very special.”

Ms. Le May Doan said she was overwhelmed during the pair’s brief jog.

“You go by all these kids, and everyone’s cheering. It’s for all of Canada, so to be there at the start was absolutely incredible and emotional.

“It’s the flame,” she said. “It represents everything that sport implies. It’s what the Olympic flame is all about.”

Laumann, who, like Mr. Whitfield, has lived in Victoria for many years, said she was caught off guard by the emotions of the moment.

“You’re standing there, and all of a sudden, you realize the Olympic flame, with all its history and dreams, is coming towards you,” Ms. Laumann said. “To be part of that first group in the city I love and live, is really pretty special.”

Thousands lined the relay route, many waving Canadian flags, as the four Olympians transferred the flame to other runners, who headed up Government Street, passing in front of the well-known Empress Hotel, to great cheers.

There was heavy security everywhere, including a police helicopter circling overhead and a police boat accompanying the flame into Victoria’s inner harbour.

But beyond a scattered yell of protest or two, and several of the city’s famous Raging Grannies, one of whom held up a home-made sign reading Olympic Snow Job, there was no sign of opposition to the Games.

Police estimated the crowds massed in front of the legislature at between 5,000 and 7,000 specators.

Rain held off, and at times, the sun peeked out, as ceremonies launching the torch relay went on.

Among those who turned up was 77-year old, retired teacher Ann Shaffer. “I think all things Canadian are important,” she explained. “I figure I’ll never be as close to an Olympic flame in my life as now.”

Philippe Charette wiped tears from his eyes after seeing the torch pass by. “Just to see it right in front of me….it was emotional.”

Unlike in Canada’s two previous torch relays, the flame will not be carried in a single torch. Each runner will have his or her own torch, and the flame will be ignited between torches at every change-over.

VANOC’s recently deceased board chairman Jack Poole was not forgotten during the festivities and ceremonies that took place before the much-anticipated relay began. Prime Minister Stephen Harper, British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell and Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson were among the speakers.

After the crowd silently bowed their heads in a moment of silence, Mr. Poole’s wife Darlene used a small torch to set the torch relay’s community cauldron ablaze although it took some time for both Mrs. Poole and VANOC boss John Furlong to coax the cauldron to catch fire.

VANOC officials are hoping the torch relay will light a celebratory fire in the country, particularly in British Columbia, where polls have found the public increasingly sour about the coming Winter Olympics.

“I think people will begin to realize what it’s going to be like,” VANOC deputy CEO Dave Cobb told reporters in the hours before the run’s launch.

“Up to now, there’s been a little bit more caution and concern about the Games in B.C. But I think the mood and the excitement are going to increase and build, as the relay unfolds.”

The Olympic torch had arrived on Canadian soil a bit later than its anticipated touchdown shortly after dawn, owing to strong headwinds during its flight from Athens, where it had been entrusted by Greek Olympic officials to John Furlong.

Officials cut short a planned welcoming ceremony at the airport in order to ensure that proceedings went ahead on time at the launch of the relay.

During the long homeward journey aboard a Canadian Forces airbus, the fire had been kept burning inside a small miner’s lantern, entrusted for safekeeping to aboriginal flame attendants, Dina Ouelette and Aronhiaies Herne.

Four CF-18 jets roared overhead as the flame – still in its lantern — made its way by convoy to Victoria’s scenic inner harbour, where three native canoes carried it across the water in spectacular fashion to the front of the stately legislature. The songs of the paddlers sounded clearly across the harbour, as they propelled their canoes forward.

The lead canoe contained leaders of the Four Host First Nations, on whose traditional territory the Olympics will take place. As the lead canoe reached the harbour, the sun and blue skies appeared.

They passed the flame lantern to Chief Robert Sam and Chief Andy Thomas of the Songhees and Esquimalt First Nations, respectively, after asking their permission to come ashore.

The two chiefs then slowly made their way with the flame to the huge stage erected in front of the legislature.

By the time the Olympic torch finishes its journey at Vancouver’s BC Place stadium on Feb. 12, it will have passed through more than a thousand Canadian communities, including about 115 stops in aboriginal locations, and covered 45,000 kilometres, the longest relay in a single country in Olympic history.

Today, the torch is scheduled to travel 90 kilometres in and around Victoria, before ending the day back where it started, at the legislature for a gala gathering organizers hoped would attract as many as 30,000 people.

From Victoria, the torch heads north on Vancouver Island for the next three days, before heading to the Queen Charlotte Islands, also known as Haida Gwaii.

All told, 12,000 torchbearers will carry the Olympic flame on its journey from coast to coast to coast.

It has been an uneventful couple of days. I am furiously trying to read through “What is Gnosticism” for class, I think I am sixty pages in of a 245 page read. God give me strength. There is rain in the forecast for tomorrow. Hopefully the kiddies won’t get wet. It will be nippy out, but no snow (yet).

Ghost to Ghost is on Saturday night with Ian Punnett on Coast to Coast. It will be an exciting show, as this is the first time that Ian has the show. There will be tricks and treats …

So I won these the other day, and today I paid for them. Woo Hoo !!!

Dinner is cooking, got to go…

More to come, stay tuned …

Rate this:

I’ve navigated another week of studies. Quite successfully I might add. I attended a meeting at the Multifaith Chaplaincy this afternoon and we have a plan of action set up for the university. I have a list of things to do for next week.

I went to visit one of my esteemed colleagues afterwards and we talked about life and school. Donald is studying at the Anglican College in pursuit of holy orders and is very happy with his choice to do so. We welcomed him into the Anglican Church on Holy Saturday this past spring.

I told him that maybe I have found a venue to put my Pastoral Ministry Certificate into action. And he told me that maybe “Holy Mother Church was calling me back …” I just laughed. We’ll see if that is true.

The end of the month is coming and we will be getting financial aide on Friday. That means bills and pills will be bought as well. I bid on an item on Ebay this past week, and wouldn’t you know it, I bid high enough that my bid went uncontested and I won it. And on Friday I will get to pay for my item and it will totally be mine.

Let’s try this again … I got booted off just now and it didn’t save half of the post I had written here so let’s pop the memory back in…

H1N1 — We checked the website for the island of Montreal and found out that we can get our vaccines on Monday since I am immunocompromised and I am also a diabetic, so I get to pass go, collect $200, and go to the head of the line, and so does my hubby.We’ll be traveling down to Verdun to get our vaccines, hopefully it won’t be a mad house like we have seen on tv the past few days.

“No one in America should ever be afraid to walk down the street holding the hand of the person they love.”
.
Here are the remarks President Obama made a few minutes ago following the signing of the Matthew Shepard/James Byrd Hate Crime Prevention Act into law.

“After more than a decade of delay, we have passed inclusive hate crimes legislation to help protect our citizens from violence based on what they look like, who they love, how they pray or who they are.”

“As a nation we’ve come far on the journey toward a more perfect union and today we’re taking another step forward.”

He described hate crimes as “… crimes that are meant not only to break bones but to break spirits, not only to inflict harm but to inspire fear. We understand that the rights afforded every citizen under our Constitution mean nothing if we do not protect those rights from unjust laws and violent acts and we understand how necessary this law continues to be.”

Last night I had a monster of a headache. Not sure if it was hunger driven or illness driven, but it was pain nonetheless. So I was in bed very early – I got up to get some food around 11 and went back to bed. I had an early call this morning.

I don’t do mornings – usually… But today I had to be at the diabetes clinic by 9:00 a.m. to get into the patient queue. There are always at least 20 people waiting at any given hour of the morning. I got in line and they took me quite quickly – a very smart looking and cute looking intern did my triage. He went over my numbers and took some notes of things that I had observed over the last few months and he also looked at my test numbers. They have been steadily coming down.

It seems doctor George used me as a guinea pig with the medications that I am on now. Because at one point the young intern went to get him and he told me so much. He said that most doctors wouldn’t have done what he did to me – medications wise, but it seems that I respond very well to medications.

They decided to cut my Diabeta in half for my lunch and dinner pill taking. From 5 mg to 2.5 per meal, along with the Metformin and the Januvia. It seems that the Januvia is doing the bulk of the sugar work, as in, bringing the numbers down. I have these wonky moments here and there and they were noted in my file. Doctor George was very pleased with my numbers, he was actually bouncing on his toes, apparently pleased with what he did with me.

So they tweaked my meds a little bit and gave me a 6 month return appointment. That was a good morning.

***********

I came home and went back to bed. And I had the most interesting dream. It seems that in this dream I had been adopted into a family of religious people, it was a very “Seminary” dream. That’s the best way to describe it, because that is the feeling that I took away from it. There was a huge house. A mom and dad, and three siblings. There was a big party and lots of spiritual things going on in the dream. It was very spiritual – they say that you should observe the dream and if you can – are awake – during your dream, take as much information away from it that you can, visually, emotionally, descriptively and physically. There was cake, and celebration. There was prayer and communication. I haven’t had a dream like this in like, forever… then it ended abruptly and I woke up.

***********

And now for the best news of the night… Remember that I had that exam in my Gnosticism class last week, and I was angry about the fact that I studied like a madman and most of what I studied was NOT on the exam. And I posted the questions I answered earlier, let me go find them… Here they are:

Who was Simon Magus and why was he important to Gnostics?

Why is it so difficult to define “Gnosticism?”

Who is Sophia and what role does she play in Sethian Gnosticism?

Describe the socioeconomic, religious and political atmosphere in early Alexandria that led to Gnosticism in Jewish diaspora Jews? (I nailed this question)

When class started tonight the prof told us that nobody failed the exam and he was quite pleased we all did so well. I just shook my head. I wasn’t sure what i was expecting in him saying “he was pleased we did well!” We had our lecture on the Gospel of Philip and a discussion about Jesus and Mary Magdalene which was entertaining and informative. At the end of class he handed out the exams and I was afraid to look at mine. I got a ( B- ) … Holy Fuck !!!

I pulled a ( B – ) out of my ass …

I thought about this on the way home tonight. Thinking about what everyone had said to me after the fact when I was fretting about my work… I knew the material. I studied it all. I took it all in and when I sat the exam, I wrote everything that came to mind on every question. And it wasn’t about how much I wrote on each question, but WHAT I did write on each question that mattered. Because on a few of the questions, I only wrote half a page, not a whole page, and in those cases, that was enough. I had hit the nail on the head.

So that makes the following: I got a ( B ) on my bibliography and I got a ( B- ) on the exam. Which puts me in good standing as a graduate student. I have a book review due in a couple of weeks and I really need to finish this 245 page text on What is Gnosticism by Karen L. King. It’s a nightmare … But doable…

This afternoon I met the new Catholic Priest in residence at the Multifaith Chaplaincy building on Campus, Fr. Paul Anyidoho. He seems very nice and we had a good talk about ministry and the student body.

He is trying to get students to join his group on Campus to build up a community and we talked about ways of doing this. So I am posting this notice on my blog, because I am connected to the University Blog system.

The R.C.S.A. meets on Wednesday’s at Annex Z room 02 from 12:30 to 2:00 p.m. in the Chaplaincy building on Mackay street across from the Hall Building.

Last night the world got a real treat. U2 was performing at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena California and they webcast the entire show online. The show went live in California at 8:30 p.m. with a 9:00 p.m. start. We stayed up late here on the East Coast to see the entire show.

The concert is available to see right now on U2’s Official Channel over on You Tube, if you didn’t get a chance to see it last night. If you’ve never seen a live U2 show, this one rocked …

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The Senate passed groundbreaking legislation Thursday that would make it a federal crime to assault an individual because of his or her sexual orientation or gender identity.

The expanded federal hate crimes law now goes to President Obama’s desk. Obama has pledged to sign the measure, which was added to a $680 billion defense authorization bill.

President George W. Bush had threatened to veto a similar measure.

The bill is named for Matthew Shepard, a gay Wyoming teenager who died after being kidnapped and severely beaten in October 1998, and James Byrd Jr., an African-American man dragged to death in Texas the same year.

“Knowing that the president will sign it, unlike his predecessor, has made all the hard work this year to pass it worthwhile,” said Judy Shepard, board president of the Matthew Shepard Foundation named for her son. “Hate crimes continue to affect far too many Americans who are simply trying to live their lives honestly, and they need to know that their government will protect them from violence, and provide appropriate justice for victims and their families.”

Several religious groups have expressed concern that a hate-crimes law could be used to criminalize conservative speech relating to subjects such as abortion or homosexuality.

Attorney General Eric Holder has asserted that any federal hate-crimes law would be used only to prosecute violent acts based on bias, as opposed to the prosecution of speech based on controversial racial or religious beliefs.

Holder called Thursday’s 68-29 Senate vote to approve the defense spending bill that included the hate crimes measure “a milestone in helping protect Americans from the most heinous bias-motivated violence.”

“The passage of this legislation will give the Justice Department and our state and local law enforcement partners the tools we need to deter and prosecute these acts of violence,” he said in a statement.

Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, called the measure “our nation’s first major piece of civil rights legislation for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.”

“Too many in our community have been devastated by hate violence,” Solmonese said in a statement. “We now can begin the important steps to erasing hate in our country.”

This month, Obama told the Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest gay rights group, that the nation still needs to make significant changes to ensure equal rights for gays and lesbians.

“Despite the progress we’ve made, there are still laws to change and hearts to open,” he said during his address at the dinner for the Human Rights Campaign. “This fight continues now, and I’m here with the simple message: I’m here with you in that fight.”

Among other things, Obama has called for the repeal of the ban on gays serving openly in the military, the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. He also has urged Congress to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and pass the Domestic Partners Benefit and Obligations Act.

The Defense of Marriage Act defines marriage, for federal purposes, as a legal union between a man and a woman. It allows states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages. The Domestic Partners Benefit and Obligations Act would extend family benefits now available to heterosexual federal employees to gay and lesbian federal workers.

More than 77,000 hate-crime incidents were reported by the FBI between 1998 and 2007, or “nearly one hate crime for every hour of every day over the span of a decade,” Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee in June.

The FBI, Holder added, reported 7,624 hate-crime incidents in 2007, the most current year with complete

Today the government of Canada has approved the use of the adjuvant enhanced H1N1 Swine Flu vaccine for use across Canada and the territories. We are told at this time that in Quebec, the roll out of this vaccine will begin on Monday.

The sites for vaccination will be online as of Friday. We checked the CLSC website as of tonight and no updates were available. I was encouraged very highly by my doctor to get the vaccine. We went over contingency plans in case I get sick and I was told that if I did get sick that he would get me medication (Tamiflu) as soon as I needed it.

I usually get through the Holidays without incident – that is my yearly cycle. I don’t usually get back lashed until February or March. That has been my cycle for the last few years. I am good at staying away from people, although I still have one more doctors appointment on the 27th which means I will have to sit in a queue in the diabetes clinic on that morning. I have to go drop labs for Dr. George this week to get my diabetes panels complete.

**********

I spoke to Karl earlier tonight when I got home from class, and he took his brother to the clinic to get checked out – and they were turned away for treatment because of lack of insurance and money. It is very difficult for him because Karl plays the role of Father to his siblings, adviser and love coach to his mother and health care worker for his father who is still in hospital because of his out of control diabetes and other medical problems.

Now Karl is sitting in the space of being powerless over people and places because they don’t have the money to pay for treatment that may be required to help his brother and they don’t have health insurance. Jacob is 19 and may fall out of the loop of the pediatric system. I have given him a number of choices to pursue in the next few days.

DONATIONS

If I have to raise money for him I will do that. If you want to donate you can do so through this blog here – just click the piggy link and all finds received will be sent to Karl in Texas. It may come down to this if we cannot find a route to get his brother the health care that he needs. That is the state of health care in the U.S. and namely Texas. Change is coming hopefully from the government but that may be a day late and a dollar short.

If you are in Canada and you want to get more information on the H1N1 information you can click this link:

I don’t know, I’m kinda in this mood today. Today was D-Day. I had a doctors appointment and a debrief over the H1N1 flu vaccine. He told me that I should get the vaccine since my immune system is better than most. The vaccine is getting distributed through the CLSC (clinic) system in the city. The clinic at the hospital hasn’t gotten a mandate to distribute vaccine as of yet.

I’ve gained a little weight, we don’t know if the medications I am on are contributing to it, but I hit the gym whenever I can. I am at that 10 pound point where I fluctuate in this region of 170 – to – 178 and I can’t seem to get down past 175. Who knows. I see my diabetes doctor on the 27th.

Describe the socioeconomic, religious and political atmosphere in early Alexandria that led to Gnosticism in Jewish diaspora Jews? (I nailed this question)

It’s too late to answer these questions now… I did my best, but I think I fucked up at least two of the questions. I glossed over Simon Magus and really did not study specifically Sophia, but concentrated more on Sethian Gnostic Theology.

Those were the questions that I chose to answer on the exam. Earlier in the week I sent the prof an email asking him about a certain handout he gave us, and he told me not to worry about it, THEN he said that I NEEDED to study Epiphanus and Irenaeus and to know what they thought about Gnostics.That meant reading all of the biblical passages – the writings of each church father and lecture slides.

None of this shit he told me to study so hard for was on the fucking exam.

So I spent the better part of a week studying the entire book, I concentrated on things I imagined he would ask about, and I was terribly wrong !!! He had two exams. One for the undergrads and one for the grads.

FUCK ME !!!

This was a BIG FAIL …

Rate this:

Sunday Prayer

My Side of the Street by Jeremiah Andrews is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Canada License.
“What we are not make us , what we know not teach us, what we have not give us, in the most precious name of God, Creator, Redeemer and Giver of life, who is, who was, and is to come.” Amen…
I took this photo myself on Thanksgiving Day on Mount Royal, here in Montreal. October 2012.

Rock the Sox

Brief Statement

Boot Boy

Support the Liberal Party – Support Justin

Sober Blogs

Defeat is Worse than Death, You have to live with Defeat

The Author of My Side of the Street – Hubby and Me !!!

This is Me …

From High Above Montreal - Welcome to My Side of the Street. Keeping it clean for 13 years.

I am gay, clean and sober and I have been HIV Positive for 20 years now, who knew!!

I hold a B.A. in Religious Studies and I have completed my Certificate in Pastoral Ministry. I have concluded all my studies this Spring 2012. I am now in the next stage in my life.

There is an ABOUT ME up there on the header.

Let me address the sacred and the profane. You can't have one without the other, they are integral parts of life. They make us who we are. Each one of us is a little sinner and a little saint. Hence, the sacred and the profane.

I have been blogging on Word Press for a number of years. I encourage discussion. But let me say that what you think of me is none of my business. If you find you have a problem with what I write, then ask yourself why? We may not agree all the time and that's ok. I am just not going to be bullied again.

Serenity Please.

If you feel the need to write you can find me at [jeremy1350@gmail.com] I read all my mail and I even write back.

Thank you for stopping by.

Adam Wesley Frey

Blog Stats

133,468 hits

Email Subscription

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Portraits of Recovery from Alcoholism + Addiction. The Rooms Project is a sober photographer's photo and audio story series on recovering addicts and alcoholics who consider themselves in long-term recovery. The site features portraits of addicts and portraits of alcoholics, along with their clean and sobriety dates, who have all found long-term addiction and alcoholism recovery.